Did you remove your rear PCI cover plates for airflow?

[P A U L]

So I currently have positive pressure in my PC. I didn't really do any high accuracy calculations. Just eyeballed an "average" from Argus Monitor and presumably I have 3200 rpm going in and 2300 going out.

That doesn't account for the fact that 4 of the intake fans are covered by an air filter. 2 of those are sucking in air 2 inches off a concrete floor.

So I don't really know exactly what the pressure is, but I imagine is mostly positive.

I recently ran into some (lol literally 1 person) mention removing the back PCI plates would increase airflow, thereby providing better temperatures. Anyone else try this and swear by it?

 

[freeagent]

I removed mine.. I don't have any exhaust fans at the moment. I do have roughly 350cfm flowing through my Meshify C, all front to back.. not including the CPU cooler.. which has about 240cfm worth of fans on it..

 

[Mr.Scott]

I have slotted ones in all of mine.

 

[JLK03F150]

I have slotted ones in all off mine.

My Rocketfish / Lian Li (2006 version) has the slotted PCI slot covers.

It runs negative pressure with 3x120 exhaust fans on the radiator, 1x120 case exhaust, and 1x80 & 1x120 case intake.

 

[Blaylock]

Mine are all slotted too so I keep them installed. You should keep in mind, the more openings, especially large openings like these, there are in your chassis, the less effective positive pressure will be. It's minimally effective as it is. Proper airflow is far more beneficial for temperatures. If you're going positive pressure for dust prevention then having a gaping hole in the back of the case will prevent positive pressure.

 

[P A U L]

I wouldn't mind adjusting the positive pressure closer towards neutral for improved airflow. Other than adjusting the fan speeds, I think the PCI slots may help.

But should I replace with slotted covers or remove it entirely and leave a gaping hole

 

[dfonda]

I keep mine in for looks, tho typically with 2 GPU's there is only one or two left....My CPU and GPU are below 50C (AIO's) under load. At least the load I put on it.

 

[EarthDog]

lol, nope. Never touched them for airflow. Mine are slotted anyway.

 

[freeagent]

Slotted pci covers are good for when you have slow fans. They restrict the airflow enough for your GPU to grab some fresh air by sort of building a pocket. But if you have strong fans and/or don't use exhaust fans then they are more of a hinderance imo.

 

[EarthDog]

I honestly have to imagine it doesn't make much of a difference at all in most cases. If you have more CFM intake than exhaust, so long as there isn't a fan directing movement, it just seeps out of those holes too (along with the fan holes)...the reverse for negative. Slow fans, fast fans, I don't see it making a significant difference.

 

[Nebulous]

I have slotted ones on my case. Back in the day I used to remove all of them to get better airflow and you really don't see the back of the case. But now I like to leave them on because it looks alot nicer

 

[P A U L]

I just actually looked at the back of my PC lol and realized, while they aren't slotted, they have square holes across the length of the plate. I think I'll just leave it in since my current temps are all within healthy range... and... I don't want a cockroach wandering in there and me going wide-eyed one day as I open my PC to find crumbly roach bits falling apart all over the crevices of the bottom of the inside of my case where I can never get to it and have a roach graveyard for a computer.

 

[Nebulous]

I just actually looked at the back of my PC lol and realized, while they aren't slotted, they have square holes across the length of the plate. I think I'll just leave it in since my current temps are all within healthy range... and... I don't want a cockroach wandering in there and me going wide-eyed one day as I open my PC to find crumbly roach bits falling apart all over the crevices of the bottom of the inside of my case where I can never get to it and have a roach graveyard for a computer.

I found spiders and webs in my old pc cases. They we all dead, but I think they got that way trying to "surf the web"

 

[P A U L]

Anyone ever use a fogger to see the airflow in your PC?

 

[EarthDog]

Anyone ever use a fogger to see the airflow in your PC?

Does a cigar count?

 

[P A U L]

I uh... I think I may have lightly tried cigarette smoke in the past. I can't remember. But like.. that was 1 puff. I didn't want to continue because.... well... there's micro sticky **** in that smoke lol. Any other source of visible smoke/fog that I could think of was... steam that I also didn't want flowing in there while electricity was flowing through the board.

............dry ice?

 

[EarthDog]

I mean, it's living in the minutia, methinks, but that said, I'd love to see it!!!! Wonder if the youtube has something already.......

 

[Janus67]

I honestly have considered something similar, Paul, in that I have a homemade air purifier [4*20''x25''x4'' MERV8 air filters with a box fan ontop] and am curious if it pulls enough air via the box fan to be doing much. The dry ice idea came to me as well, but the idea of adding the additional moisture from the vapor into a case made me pause as I'm not setup for sub-ambient cooling.

 

[Blaylock]

There is no need for concern of added moisture vapor with dry ice. The smoke caused by dry ice is the freezing moisture that already exists. There is no addition. That moisture was always there, you can just see it now.

I have also thought of how I can visualize the airflow of a chassis. The problem with using smoke from tobacco, incense, or dry ice, is the smoke requires low pressure to remain visible. Once the smoke enters the fan, it disappears. It enters the high pressure zone and rapidly dissipates. You would need to either use very low speed/low pressure fans to keep the smoke intact or use a large production smoke fogger.

Highly sensitive thermal cameras have crossed my mind too. The problem I see with these is the glass panel would block the view essentially. So far the best example I've seen online is with hydro-dynamic simulation software.

 

[EarthDog]

Here are some examples of testing...

airflow inside computer case smoke - Google Search

Some used vapes and big arse hits to blow smoke inside... there's a slew of different methods.